


Proposal

by hungry_hobbits



Category: Papillon (2018)
Genre: Alternate Events, Fluff, M/M, Past Relationships Mentioned - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt, marriage talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-14 00:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20182879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungry_hobbits/pseuds/hungry_hobbits
Summary: Henri asks a question with underlying implications.





	Proposal

**Author's Note:**

> prompt fill for BrayingHorses on tumblr. i would've put this with the Papillon prompt fic thing i have going on but it's significantly longer than most of what's in there, so i thought it would be better to have it separate
> 
> also apologies if it's kind of all over the place i read it approx 1.5x before posting

“You were married once. How was it?” Henri asked the question so nonchalantly, as if nearly two decades had not passed since the past and the present. But he asked the question with a genuine curiosity, despite how lax it came out, and Louis could not ignore it.

Louis rubbed his leg, his fingers kneaded into his calf to keep it from getting too stiff while he sat. “How was it? Well… it was nice while it lasted. She was wonderful and so very beautiful, a good wife all things considered, but I think she liked me less for _me_ and more for my _money_. I can’t say I blame her, I had quite a lot of money back then, much more than I do now.”

“I haven’t thought about her in a long time.” Louis shook his head, “No. That isn’t true. I saw a woman in town, she reminded me of my ex-wife with her dark hair and pretty smile,” The man frowned, “which then reminded me of how she decided to marry my _lawyer_ and leave me stuck on that _damned_ island.”

Henri chuckled and took a drag off his cigarette, “You used to draw pictures of her.”

“Don’t remind me. They were very terrible. I was very desperate.”

“You’ve improved greatly, if that’s any consolation.” Henri smiled coyly. Louis had seemed to very quickly trade in hasty and awkward sketches of his former wife for artsy, dedicated portraits of the former safe cracker.

Louis rolled his eyes, “Why are you even asking about her?”

“I wasn’t asking about _her_ specifically. More about your marriage. I’ve been thinking about it lately.”

“Thinking about marriage?” Louis quirked a brow, “Didn’t you have a fiancé? What was her name…? Nancy?”

“_Nennette_.” Henri tapped his ashes into a tray and looked out into the garden, “And she wasn’t my fiancé. Eventually I would’ve asked her to marry me, sure. And she was dying for me to. I just wasn’t ready, I was having fun living a life of danger and intrigue. That doesn’t exactly work well with marriage and domesticity, at least not for long.”

He worried vacantly at his beard, wondering for just a moment if she had managed to find someone nice to settle down with, maybe even someone law-abiding.

He was oblivious to Louis’ gaze, but he was quite used to being stared at by those dark eyes. They could be on him for hours, accompanied by the dry scratching of a pencil on paper. He had never before been an artist’s muse.

“Papi, why are you bringing any of this up?” The question brought Henri back to focus.

“It would be nice to be married now. In fact, I would be quite happy married here. Wouldn’t you?”

“Are you proposing?” Louis sat up, a bit too quickly for his aching leg to adjust to. He seethed softly but kept his eyes firmly on the now smirking Frenchman. “Please tell me you aren’t proposing.”

“If I were, would you say yes?”

“Can’t you do anything _normally_?” Louis immediately put his hand up, “No. Never mind. Don’t answer that.” Memories of being flung off a cliff into an uncertain ocean rushed him like a crashing wave.

“Don’t you ever think about being Mister Charrière?”

“Why can’t you be Mister Dega?”

“Because I’m the one proposing, so that means you’d take my last name.”

“You haven’t actually proposed yet.”

“And you haven’t told me if you would say yes if I did.”

Louis leaned back into his seat. Of course they both knew the answer, no matter how Henri went about asking the question. There was no secret in regard to the affection they held for each other, even if they weren’t overt and public. Even if they could not _really_ get married. It was the thought that counted.

“If you were to ask me _properly_, and it would have to be with a ring and a speech and bent on one knee – the works, I think I would have no choice but to say yes.” He looked at Henri with a fondness he had shown him probably a million times over, and most certainly would show a million more times to come. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“We’ve been stuck together for over twenty years, I like to think I know you well enough by now.”

“I think you know me better than anyone in my time on Earth.”

**Author's Note:**

> hungry-hobbits.tumblr.com


End file.
